The Man Behind Wikileaks: A Julian Assange Cheat Sheet

In early June, an exceptionally well-timed New Yorker piece profiled Julian Assange, the enigmatic and nomadic 39-year-old mastermind of Wikileaks, whose coordinated release of 92,000 classified documents to three newspapers has re-energized debate over the direction of the U.S.-led military effort in Afghanistan. The Australian Assange, a prodigal computer hacker, was once known by the nom de plume “Mendax.” In the late 80s, Assange was a founding member of a group of hackers who called themselves the International Subversives. His activities with the International Subversives eventually attracted the attention of law-enforcement authorities, and Assange was arrested in the early 90s after hacking into the computer system of a major Canadian telecommunications company. A court eventually ruled that his intentions were benign, and he avoided a prison sentence of up to 10 years. After working toward a physics degrees at the University of Melbourne, he founded Wikileaks in 2006. “Our primary targets are those highly oppressive regimes in China, Russia and Central Eurasia, but we also expect to be of assistance to those in the West who wish to reveal illegal or immoral behavior in their own governments and corporations,” he wrote in a note to potential whistleblowers at the time of the site’s launch. In response to the most recent document blitz, the White House issued a statement to journalists and news organizations in which it reminded them of the site’s activist agenda. “As you report on this issue, it’s worth noting that wikileaks is not an objective news outlet but rather an organization that opposes US policy in Afghanistan,” a memo cautioned. Assange is the first to corroborate this characterization. “Assange, despite his claims to scientific journalism, emphasized to me that his mission is to expose injustice, not to provide an even-handed record of events,” The New Yorker’s Raffi Khatchadourian wrote. In an interview with Der Spiegel, Assange said that his goal in releasing the Afghan war logs was to call attention to “the everyday brutality and squalor of war. The archive will change public opinion and it will change the opinion of people in positions of political and diplomatic influence.” In a press conference in London this morning, a cagey Assange stood in front of his MacBook and responded to questions about his intentions and concerns. “I’m often asked this: what is the single most damning revelation?” he said. “But that is not the real story with this material. The real story with this material is that it’s war. It’s one damn thing after another.” It’s a sentiment that’s likely echoed by President Obama, although perhaps with different connotations.